Theo Todman's Web Page - Notes Pages

1. Summary
   • Jen doesn’t think the project futile or silly, however (for the reasons given later) …
   • She is not herself altogether in favour of the application of Web-technology to philosophy, and …
   • She doesn’t want it to distract me from my Thesis (depending on how long I want the Thesis to take).
2. Does Web-technology serve philosophy well?
   • Plus Points: There are many of these; in particular the easy availability of old-style information, and some new facilities of high quality (Philosophers’ Index, Stanford Encyclopedia – useful even for professional philosophers outside their specialism).
   • Negatives - Student’s essays: many are using the internet as inspiration for their assignments. Even where there’s no direct plagiarism, undergraduates have difficulty using internet-delivered resources because they can’t easily tell whether what they find is good philosophy or bad.
   • Negatives - Volume of available information: already in my topic-area there are thousands of available papers. This will easily rise 10-fold if my ideas take off.
   • Negatives - Lack of quality control: The Stanford encyclopedia is good quality because Stanford is a good department that only contracts good philosophers. What will happen to the quality control of all other offerings likely to find their way into the Web? Jen mentioned the Scholars’ Wikipedia, which she’d been asked to comment on. The entry she’d reviewed hadn’t been very good. She has to turn away 90% of requests to review, so if the volume of material increases 10-fold, she’ll only be able to look at 1%. So, if the other stuff is looked at at all, it may not be by a very competent philosopher.
3. Time-stealing: I’ve admitted that I may have to take time out occasionally to develop/maintain the site and the software that generates it. This must be kept under control.
4. Constraint of argument-form: philosophy is difficult enough as it is, without having to shoehorn the text of one’s writing into a particular “nuggetted” format. I agreed that this is the most difficult area, and that if it becomes a nuisance, I’ll just need to write normal essays and worry about “nuggetting” them later.
5. Argument in Philosophy: I had stressed the importance of argument in philosophy, not so much because I think that argument is all there is to philosophy, but because I think that portraying arguments might be particularly difficult for my software to do. I have realist aspirations, and hope that philosophy is a seeking after truth, rather than a challenge to exercise one’s skill in arguing for the most outrageously counter-intuitive thesis possible. Jen thought there could be too much argument in philosophy, and cited an example from the “McDowell” conference over the weekend, where (according to the general consensus) the worst paper presented contained the most arguments. The reason it fell short was that it was attempting to argue for a thesis that totally missed the dialectical point at issue. I’m not 100% clear we were on the same wavelength here.
6. Collaboration: I re-iterated that my software is aimed at the work of a single philosopher (per installed instance of the software). An example came up about the distinction between mere terminological differences and those of substance. Within the work of a single philosopher, as written by that philosopher, this confusion shouldn’t arise.
7. Drift of Topic: Jen cited the work of another research student whose thesis topic had (for good reason) developed into directions other than those originally envisaged, and she wondered how my approach would cope with this sort of thing. I don’t really see the problem. If the approach is sound, then whatever is re-usable in the cause of the revised thesis will remain useful, and whatever isn’t will be left behind as in traditional methods (but still available for other causes; and more readily so, I would have thought).
8. Footnotes: Jen mentioned that in her own work she prefers either to eliminate footnotes, or else incorporate them in the main text. I think I agree with this. I intend (in the next version of my software) that there will be the option to embed items of text “in line” as well as as hyperlinked footnotes. There will need to be indicators of different sorts of links; those needing to be read (even though somewhat tangential to the main thread of the argument), and those only required to be read by those not familiar with the philosopher’s standpoint.
9. Blogs: Jen thinks these can be useful where they address a well-defined point. I agree, but have nothing new technologically to contribute in this area (though I do have a blog, and am using this for discussions).
10. Applicability: I think we agreed that some discussions just aren’t suited to the approach I have in mind, in that the meaning of the terms used and introduced is too embedded in the context of the work that they cannot be broken out in the way I’m intending. However, I think this is more often assumed to be the case than it needs to be, and it’s part of the ethos of analytic philosophy that this methodology be avoided where possible.

1. Software Distribution: I’m not (at this stage) trying to build a marketable, or even shareable, software package. I’m trying to build and use something that will help me in my research and which may eventually prove to be a useful tool for other philosophers. If an appropriate product isn’t available when I’ve finished my PhD, I may re-write the prototype in a distributable form.
2. Volume and quality control: There are at least two aspects:-
   • Self-assurance: There must be some self-policing encouraged (and those who don’t do this need to be “named and shamed”). I intend to put “quality markers” on my documents in due course.
   • Public assurance: I imagine some system of authentication will be worked out. Maybe a “philosophers list” will need to be invented in due course, whereby all philosophers receive a sophon-count based on some contentious procedure yet to be invented (like being a ninth Dan); or we just proceed as we are. I’m sure such worries were rife (and justified) following the invention of printing. Incidentally, I had the volumetrics somewhat wrong. I’ve not done much investigation, but it seems that some 30,000 incunabula (1450 – 1500 European) (type) volumes are still in existence, and that some 20,000,000 (token) book volumes were produced in this period. Incunabula include pamphlets, but I’d imagine only a small percentage of these would have survived. Self-publishing is today a possibility in hard copy, though the expense limits the abuse somewhat.
3. Footnotes: My point here is that it would be a good thing if something were done by some philosophers to make their work more accessible. McDowell’s my favourite example, and I cited Wiggins versus Snowdon (maybe unfairly). What I hope for in my approach is to allow multiple levels of footnoting, so that a trail can be followed to any depth that the reader finds useful and the writer cares to provide. Those familiar with the author’s oeuvre need not follow these trails, while others might. The initiating footnote would need to indicate the type of trail that was being initiated. It seems to me that this approach, even for “essential” trails, might make for better signposting than the “long splodge of text” approach for which undergraduates castigated, but in which good philosophers seem to delight.

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